Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat is running for re-election Tuesday in a city that has issues both ancient and modern. / Sebastian Scheiner, AP

by Michele Chabin , Special for USA TODAY

by Michele Chabin , Special for USA TODAY

JERUSALEM - Being mayor of a large city is hard enough without having to deal with the geopolitical issues of Jews, Muslims and Christians.

Voters will go to the polls Tuesday to elect a mayor in this city that overflows with history and holy sites, religious fervor and ethnic rivalries.

The winner gets to oversee the modern cosmopolitan capital of Israel replete with ancient animosities that require the skills of an international diplomat as much as a city manager.

"Jerusalem is unique. It is a city that has always been the center of the world," said Alan Baker, a former Israeli ambassador and currently director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs Jerusalem.

Because it is holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, "the international community views Jerusalem as a city that belongs to everybody," Baker says. "Hence the need for sensitivity, delicacy and a way to find a peaceful solution" to Israel and Palestinian claims on the city.

Mayor Nir Barkat, who is running for re-election after one term, is a multimillionaire high-tech investor who takes a token salary of one shekel a year and tries to position himself between the leftists and moderately religious folks and the Orthodox who demand more attention to Jewish law.

"I enjoy the support of many rabbis in the National Religious community, as well as those who support the state and Zionism," Barkat said Monday to Israeli broadcaster Arutz Sheva. "Many on the right support me, but I also have supporters in the center and left."

Barkat's challenger, Moshe Leon, who is supported by several Orthodox rabbis, has suggested Barkat is in favor of territorial compromise, a term that often means giving away East Jerusalem to the Palestinians. Barkat says he is a staunch supporter of an undivided Jerusalem as Israel's eternal capital.

The mayor has also been assailed for encouraging violations of the Sabbath in a city that is the holiest place for all Jews and home to the Western Wall, part of the Jewish temple destroyed by Romans in the first century A.D. and where hundreds pray daily.

It also is home to the many sites of the life of Jesus, the Christian savior, and the Al-Aqsa mosque, built hundreds of years later following the Muslim conquest of the city in the 7th century.

Barkat was reminded of Jerusalem's fragile status quo when Arab countries condemned him for closing a dangerous foot bridge leading to the Al-Aqsa mosque, which stands atop the Temple Mount, where the biblical patriarch Abraham brought his son to sacrifice to God.

The mayor of Jerusalem "must deal with sensitive issues that, even on the municipal level, can have major geopolitical and interreligious consequences," said Elan Ezrachi, who heads a community council in the city.

In any other city, Ezrachi said, officials wouldn't hesitate to tear down a ramp if it were deemed unsafe.

When it comes to building or dismantling near Muslim holy sites, "every move requires the consent of Jordan and the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf," Ezrachi noted, referring to the Islamic authority that has authority over the Temple Mount. "Otherwise, it can cause an international crisis."

The decision to rebury ancient bones discovered during a road construction once triggered threats by Israel's ultra-Orthodox Jewish religious political parties to dissolve the coalition government. They said the bones suggested an ancient Jewish graveyard and that the project should be halted.

A decision to destroy a home built without a permit in an Arab neighborhood, or to allow Jews to live in an Arab neighborhood, can prompt a United Nations condemnation. Attempts to tax church property can ignite a battle with the Vatican.

The weightiest decisions related to Jerusalem are made by Israel's prime minister, not the mayor. It is up to the Israeli government whether to allow Jews to build homes on land claimed by Palestinians and Jews.

"The task of a mayor of Jerusalem is like an orchestra conductor," Baker said. "The notes and the pitch the orchestra is playing comes from above."

On Tuesday, many Jerusalem residents say they will vote based on everyday quality-of-life issues in the city.

The 3,000-year-old city can be hard to negotiate due to the large number of tourists. Many are unhappy that a light rail system forced the rerouting of cars and buses and complain it created the very traffic jams it was meant to avert. Trash in the streets is a continuing problem. And the city is aging as younger people move to the more happening and less religious Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast.

Palestinian residents have complaints about the poor shape of roads and school buildings compared to those in the Jewish sector. Barkat has worked to improve the Arab sector, but almost no Arab residents of Jerusalem vote, heeding the calls of their leaders.

At the vast, colorful Mahane Yehuda open-air market, where religious and secular, Jewish and Arab residents of Jerusalem shop side by side for fresh produce, David, the owner of a juice stand at the shuk who declined to give his last name, said he is upset that the market has become a tourist site.

"Barkat wants this to be a tourist market but we have to make a living, and people who come to drink coffee don't buy tomatoes," he said. "People leave the bars around the market at 2 a.m. but the bathrooms in the shuk close at 10 p.m. so they pee in the streets."

Avraham Mor, an ultra-Orthodox Jew waiting in line at a nearby pharmacy, said he wants a mayor who will focus on education, cleanliness and the holiness of the city, which is home to 800,000 mostly religious Jews and Muslims.

"Jerusalem is the holy city. I'm not interested in street festivals and other nonsense," More said.